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"Demonstrating the range and complexity of feminine imagery in Hindu tradition, Devi offers to scholars and beginners alike a fascinating and useful anthology."—Elaine Pagels, author Gnostic Gospels "Thought-provoking and new, yet containing a few classics as well, Devi is a most valuable addition to studies of India—society, religion, culture, and art."—Vidya Dehejia, Smithsonian Institution "A wonderfully informative group of essays about the main goddess figures of India. These sometimes dominate the male and sometimes stand alone, and they range from the fertile river Ganga to the awesome Kali, who is transforming herself in the West."—Ninian Smart, University of California, Santa Barbara
Devi, Mother and Protector of the world, isone of the most loved figures of Hindu iconography. In her various incarnations, Devi is warrior, mother, faithful wife, and the fount of knowledge, delivering all that her devotees ask of her. Bulbul Sharma tells the fascinating story of Devi in this book, drawing upon the many strands of myth and legend contained in ancient scriptures and also in folklore. She looks at how these stories were created, how they changed down the ages, and the vision of the world they uphold. Rich in drama and symbolism, these stories live today with the same intensity as they did when they were first told.
The story of Forster's experiences in the Indian state of Dewas Senior told through letters and linking commentary.
The Devi-Mahatmya is well-known to both devotees and scholars of the Indian Great Goddess. It is the first comprehensive account of the Goddess in Sanskrit, and it has maintained its centrality in the Goddess (Sakta) tradition to the present day. Like so much in that tradition, however, the text has until now resisted careful study from an historical perspective. It is this study that the present volume accomplishes.The central task here is to explore how an anonymous Sanskrit text articulates a view of ultimate reality as feminine when there is virtually no precedent in the Sanskrit tradition for such a view. To accomplish this task, an appropriate method of scriptural analysis is developed...
The Great Goddess, in her various puranic and tantric forms, is often figured as sitting on a corpse which is identified as Shiva-as-shava (God Shiva, the consort of the Devi and an iconic representation of the Absolute without attributes, the Nirguna Brahman). Hence, most of the existing critical works and ethnographic studies on Shaktism and the tantras have focused on the theological and symbolic paraphernalia of the corpses which operate as the asanas (seats) of the Devi in her various iconographies. This book explores the figurations of the Goddess as corpse in several Hindu puranic and Shakta-tantric texts, popular practices, folk belief systems, legends and various other cultural phen...
The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have severely limited the portrayal of the divine as feminine. But in Hinduism 'God' very often means 'Goddess'. This extraordinary collection explores twelve different Hindu goddesses, all of whom are in some way related to Devi, the Great Goddess. They range from the liquid goddess-energy of the River Ganges to the possessing, entrancing heat of Bhagavati and Seranvali. They are local, like Vindhyavasini and global, like Kali; ancient, like Saranyu and modern, like 'Mother India'. The collection combines analysis of texts with intensive fieldwork, allowing the reader to see how goddesses are worshiped in everyday life. In these compelling essays, the divine feminine in Hinduism is revealed as never before-fascinating, contradictory, powerful.
A reader-friendly translation of the medieval Indian text, which presents a powerful, compassionate goddess as ruler of the universe.
This book is a captivating narration of the various legends and folktales that surround the revered goddesses of India. The goddesses not only epitomize the forces of good fighting over evil, but also the source of worldly wellbeing. Ramananda Bandapadhyay s illustrations are symbolically rich and they in themselves constitute a storehouse of information on mythological iconography.
The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have severely limited the portrayal of the divine as feminine. But in Hinduism "God" very often means "Goddess." This extraordinary collection explores twelve different Hindu goddesses, all of whom are in some way related to Devi, the Great Goddess. They range from the liquid goddess-energy of the River Ganges to the possessing, entrancing heat of Bhagavati and Seranvali. They are local, like Vindhyavasini, and global, like Kali; ancient, like Saranyu, and modern, like "Mother India." The collection combines analysis of texts with intensive fieldwork, allowing the reader to see how goddesses are worshiped in everyday life. In these compelling essays, the divine feminine in Hinduism is revealed as never before—fascinating, contradictory, powerful.
I am the goddess of time, immorality, and the cycle of life/death. Slow to anger, easy to smile. Now I work with babies and the young of humans since they are innocents. It was there I met him. Rhodes Liatos. A man unlike any I've known before. He challenges my disheartened beliefs of the human race. He has taught me many things one of which was how to love. He is a man who loves life and has no fear of death, what happens when he learns who I truly am?